She collected her first scar as a child. A careless uncle stepped on her pinky, Pressing it into a permanent but gentle hook. Scalding water and burning pans have thickened skin, dulled nerves. We screamed in the bathtub, feet on fire Her hands swirling in lava, coaxing us.

Her joints are swelled, hard now. The wedding solitaire sleeps in its velvet crevice; she took it off before it strangled her. Its replacement, with clustered sapphires, a spider’s cataracts, shines dully from caked Ivory soap.

Now her thumbs hook the steering wheel. The fingers hang in involuntary curves, scalloped and pink, pointing rudely to the pedals and feet that have forgotten which way to push.